 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Innovative ICT Project Report - The William Durrant School
|
|
Contact for Project: - Bernadette Stern
Aims and description of the project:- We are situated on the outskirts of Chesham. The vast majority of our children come from a very large council estate. Twenty five percent are entitled to free school meals and fifteen percent have English as an additional language. Many of our pupils have very difficult home lives and survive in conditions of poverty. The levels of attainment in end of Key stage testing fall well below the national average. We had become increasingly aware that a large number of our children either arrive at school from 8.15 am onwards without having had breakfast or even a drink, or call in at their local sweetshop (and making themselves late for school) to buy sweets and crisps for both their breakfast and their lunch. Although we try to provide fruit at break time it is not sufficient to sustain children's concentration through to lunch, which is quite often not nutritious or balanced. A significant proportion of the children do not have the facilities or parental support at home to complete homework assignments. In order to meet the needs of the children, we hoped to offer a daily 20-place breakfast club, (initially three times a week for twenty six weeks) providing cereal, toast and spreads, fruit and a drink.
It was intended that we would offer facilities to allow children coming to the breakfast club to complete homework assignments and have access to computers for research and reinforcement of basic skills. We hoped to be able to encourage parents to be available to hear reading and give support to children in their study. We are one of the project schools working towards Bucks Healthy Schools Standard, so our aim was to provide a healthy start for the day for our needy children; to support them in raising attainment through regular home study and reading and to welcome parents in to participate in the education of our school community. The club would provide the fuel for sustained concentration during the morning for our more vulnerable children and also give accessibility to the tools of learning and research to help these children to work towards improving their levels of attainment in a safe and supportive environment
We planned to charge 50p per breakfast to cover the costs of the support staff needed to run the club but would not totally cover food costs as any more may be seen by the potential users as prohibitive, therefore we had allowed for a 15p subsidy in our bid to Kellogg's. To this end we put in a bid to Kellogg's Breakfast Club Awards 2001 for start up costs and also the bid for Innovative Use of ICT.
We were successfully awarded money to be dedicated on computer hardware and software, but unfortunately were not successful in our bid to Kellogg's.
Detailed Breakdown of expenditure
Hardware: PC - 700C computers x 4 (Preloaded window box) with 15" Multimedia Monitor x 4 £3,336.40
Printers x 4 £ 294.12 Trolleys x4 £ 242.92
Software: 2 years lease of RM Numeracy £ 987.00
Additional software:
Sherston Literacy Bank Y3,4,5 & 6 (5 users each) £ 400.00
I Can Write (10 users) £ 113.00
Recently we have purchased 3 more computers to bring our total to seven. £2502.30
TOTAL £7,875.74
As we were unsuccessful for funding From Kellogg's for the breakfast club, we had to rely on some parent volunteers to help rather than paying someone to run the club. The 50p charged for breakfast went solely on providing the food for breakfast. Since the club has been running we have had a varying clientele. The main attendees have been the children of the volunteers and a small core of about 6 children who had been identified as having a need. At present due to building works in the school in preparation for amalgamation, the computers have had to be spread around the school, rather than be in the central area (the library) where they were originally housed. A rota is set up and some children have their breakfast first and then have a ten minute session on RM maths, whilst others have their ten minute session first and then their breakfast. At the beginning of the project it was felt that it would be of most benefit to the pupils if they had sessions on RM Maths 3 times a week rather than allow them free reign to complete homework assignments. Since the computers have had to spread throughout the school, we have started all pupils on RM maths and so the need for these children to have sessions separately has diminished. Once the computers are again in one central place, following completion of the building works, it is intended to have these connected to the internet so that the pupils can complete research for homework etc. The use of the computers and access to the internet will be easier to monitor and police at this stage.
This has been a very worthwhile project. As yet we do not have any definitive data to show that the pupils who have attended the breakfast club have improved their attainment in numeracy. However, they have all developed in many ways and are always eager to attempt the next phase of RM Maths. Their levels of concentration have improved and hopefully they are all benefiting from the healthy breakfasts.